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MidwestRoots.net
Professional Genealogy Services for the Midwest, by Harold Henderson, CG (SM).

Certified Genealogist and CG are proprietary service marks
of the Board for Certification of Genealogists® used by the
Board to identify its program of genealogical competency
evaluation and used under license by the Board’s associates.

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Friday, September 14, 2012

When we start thinking about seeking certification from the Board for the Certification of Genealogists, one of the first things that comes up is our choices for the five items on which we choose to be evaluated: one document, one client report, one case study or complex-evidence proof argument, and one three-generation kinship determination project. What should we choose for each one? How can we even decide?

My thoughts here and elsewhere are unofficial, neither endorsed nor condemned by BCG as far as I know. And if you read anything here that contradicts the standards or the application guide or the judging rubrics, believe them and not me. (There is no surer guarantee of failure than to think you know more about what BCG wants than it does, or to think you're above following basic directions.)

In general, most of us want to choose the hardest problems that we can deal with well. Of course, that's tough to calibrate. If we already knew exactly what we could do well, we might feel less need to test ourselves against an objective standard!

There is an alternative
view, based on the fact that BCG evaluation is pass-fail. If we meet the standards and rubrics, we pass. So we could just submit our regular work, not something "special." I have no quarrel
with this, but I think it works better for those of us who are going through the process for the second time after having been turned down once. I had a much better grasp of the
meaning of the requirements the second time around! Trying to calibrate just what meets requirements could also be difficult. We could fail by trying only to pass.

Another way to think about it is that a certification portfolio does not just reveal how many record types we know about, or whether we know what to do with them once we've got them. It also shows our underlying mindset, or disposition, or orientation. Do we care as much about how we get there as what we find out? Can we remember, and do, the right
research thing at the end of a long day or a long project as surely as
at the beginning? Professionals are people who can.